Animal Rights and Voluntaryism
The fundamental question to be asked is this: are animals persons? Hans-Hermann Hoppe has defined persons as rational beings, and rational beings as beings capable of argumentation. According to Argumentation Ethics, only those capable of argumentation (persons) are capable of property ownership and subject to the Non-Aggression Principle. It is, therefore, obvious that no animal known to man qualifies as a person. Perhaps in the future an alien race will be discovered which does qualify for personhood, but that day has not yet come. Animals must be seen as scarce means to satisfy a person's wants, not as persons themselves. Personhood being ascribed to animals is a product man's empathy: we see that animals have wills, experience pain and pleasure, suffer losses and enjoy gains, so we feel for them because we too experience these things, and by this make the mistake of thinking they are more like us than they are. Simply being able to feel hurt or happiness does not grant rights or qualify one for personhood — only rationality can do that.
Another way to demonstrate the validity of my position is like this: if animals have rights, that means that they also have the duty to observe others' rights. Therefore, animals must be taken to court and take other animals to court for infractions of others' rights. The wildebeest must take the lion to court for eating their brethren, all the animals must take mosquitoes to court for violating their self-ownership, the mice should take the cats to court for attacking them, the birds should take the snakes to court for eating their eggs, the dogs should sue the fleas for biting them, etc., etc. The absurdity of this makes the answer quite clear: animals are not persons.
Animal rights, conservationism, and environmentalism are all destructive, anti-human ideologies. On their surface, this is not readily perceivable. Nonetheless, it is absolutely true. If we are to treat (non-human) animals, the environment, and "Mother Nature" as people, where does that leave us humans? If animals are people too, we mustn't aggress against their property, their air, or their environment. Everywhere humans try to live, move to, or develop, animals live or used to live. Chop down a tree? How dare you, an eagle used to live there! Built a house? You just destroyed many animals' habitat! Drain a swamp in your backyard? You annihilated thousands of species entire ecosystem! Nearly every time someone homesteads or uses their property, they are invading animals' living space. Nearly every industry uses natural resources which animals used to possess, or at least made use of the land (or sea) from which the resources were extracted. According to the animal rights advocates, conservationists, and environmentalists, animals would be better off if people just did.........NOTHING! Don't shower, don't eat meat, don't drive a car, don't build that new factory or resort, don't mine or drill for resources, don't turn your lights on, don't bag your groceries, don't spray hairspray, don't behave as if you're actually alive. These people, deep down, wish that they (and everyone else) didn't exist.
On the other hand, I'm not saying that we shouldn't care about animals, or that animal abuse is fine and dandy, I'm just saying that it doesn't qualify as aggression. All this article is trying to validate is that force cannot morally be used against the animal-harmer; it says nothing as to how animals should be treated other than as non-persons. Personally, I abhor the mistreatment of animals and am a volunteer at a local Humane Society, but I respect the right of control by owners over their animals.
This is a tricky subject, and I know that many will be made uncomfortable with these conclusions, but these insights are important to the libertarian theory of justice, and are needed to combat the progressive and anti-human nature of the animal rights position.
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~Ethan from TheLibertyAdvocate.com
Although I agree that animals are not 'persons', there are pragmatic and utilitarian reasons for respecting their environments and natural habitats. Not only that, but how can a person be truly "alive" without nature? We are products of this earth and are intimately connected to the environment. I do not want to live on an earth where humans have turned the entire land mass into one big city.
According to Hoppes, is it okay to beat up mentally challenged people?
By this reasoning, kicking your baby to death doesn't qualify as aggression. Apart from the fact that I don't think Hoppe's reasoning stands up to scrutiny, I also think you may have misunderstood what he is saying.
The difference with the baby is one of degree instead of one of kind. The baby, as a human, is a rational being. It is only to a very small degree that it is rational. Likewise, children and teenagers are less rational than 30 year old adults, but are still rational beings (a difference of degree). Animals, on the other hand, are not rational beings, with their difference being one of kind.
A baby is less rational a being than an adult chimpansee. Apparently, rationality as a trait has nothing to do with your argument: you are simply defining what you should logically argue.
You misunderstand me. There is no identifiable point in someone's life in which they change into a rational person from a non-rational being. They are simply a person from conception. What I mean by saying children are rational to a lesser degree than adults is that their ability to formulate arguments is still in development and not operating to the fullest extent possible. The actual act of arguing is not necessary to qualifing as a person, just the capability to. Babies have the capacity(potential), just not the actual ability, making them rational beings, even though they are at an extremely early stage of development. Chimps, on the other hand, don't have the capacity or the ability, making them non-persons and not at all rational.
"They are simply a person from conception" sounds like a definition to me, nothing to to with the capability to argue. "The actual act of arguing is not necessary to qualify as a person, just the capability to": babies don't have the capability, just "the potential" to argue at some unspecified point in the future, which is enough to make them rational beings and therefore persons? So the sperm and ovum, even before having fused, are also a rational being, having the "potential" to argue at some point in the future? That would not only make abortion a violent act, but also not having sex.
Also, babies born with a mental handicap, not having "the potential" to grow into a rational being, can be kicked to death without further ado? Or a they "persons" by some other convenient definition? "May have had the potential of eventualy becoming a rational being"?
You would also have to prove that chimpansees are not rational beings even though they show rational behaviour and even engage in non-violent (and non-verbal) arguing in stead of just defining them as non-rational beings.
I think this line of reasoning is a dead end when it comes to investigating animal rights.